Sorry if you are vegetarian, but I do love a good chicken liver pate’ – I haven’t yet made Heston’s meat fruit one like my friends have see previous post. This may well be the winning recipe. However more of an everyday delicious recipe that doesn’t take hours would be good to find.

Here is a picture of the basic recipe that you get with your Thermomix which is yummy, but I want it to be WOW!! The Devil of a cookbook is really good with a layer of port jelly on top. It’s a funny thing to want to photography as it’s not the prettiest looking food but a good challenge to style!

There is nothing like a bit of Christmas cooking to get you into the Christmas spirit and after out Inspire Christmas class I had to start thinking about my own Christmas cooking.

I always like to host an Xmas open morning tea for friends to drop in to – I had to make the Devil of a Cookbook 30 Sec Fruit Cake & one for a friend (It is a tradition I give him this Xmas cake every year now) Anyway for some unknown reason I managed to mess up the recipe that only has 3 ingredients!! I realised I had added too much flour & decided to add in some brandy & I always add some almonds in place of some of the fruit. Anyway I had so many compliments from guests asking for the recipe I had to admit it was a kind of made up/ mish mashed recipe 🙂

Must have awesome plates for any celebration 🙂

I had to make my friend Kel’s Speculaas Dutch spice biscuits – there is a recipe in the Devil of Cookbook too but here is Kel’s recipe if you would like to try them.

I also did some Christmas cooking with my friend Nat, we made a flat pack gingerbread house for Nat to take interstate to assemble with her family close to Christmas. We made the most delicious terrine from the festive flavour cookbook & Christmas puddings – (they make ALOT!!)

We made this delicious trifle at our recent INSPIRE Christmas cooking class

INSPIRED TRIFLE IDEAS:
This is a favourite recipe my friend’s Mum used to make for us. The original recipe used 2 packets of port wine jelly instead of using the cherry “juice” to make the jelly.
You may also like to add cherry liqueur to the jelly 🙂
There are so many different combos for a trifle, use any kind of fruit – fresh figs, pomegranate seeds, passionfruit, mango, berries, kiwi fruit, then make a jelly to go, with that fruit even a wine or sparkling wine jelly.
Match it with your style cake a plain sponge, or try chocolate, orange or pistachio.
Then flavour your custard to match or use a lemon or lime curd for something different.
Top with fresh whipped cream & something for a bit of crunch your favourite nuts, biscuits, toasted coconut, chocolate.

You can either add the cherries now & place into the fridge to set or place the cake in to soak up the cherry jelly & place the cherries on top & into the fridge to set. In a clean TM bowl whip your cream with the butterfly around 20 - 30 secs /speed 3.5-Time will vary depending on how fresh your cream is. Place the cream to one side & without needing to clean the bowl, place all the custard ingredients to the bowl. Cook for 15 mins 90 degrees speed 4 or until thick.

Pour the chocolate custard on top of the cherry jelly & cake. Place into the fridge. Once it has cooled completely spread the top of the custard with cream & sprinkle with almonds & grated dark chocolate & or toasted coconut flakes & fresh cherries. Can be made the day before, although the cream is best done on the day of serving.

I like to use the sponge cake from the Devil of a Cookbook replacing use 40g of cornflour with cocoa powder.

Strawberry & Rosewater Sorbet for Cocktails/Mocktails Delicious as a sorbet or a drink

Ingredients

100g sugar

800g ice

350g strawberries

1 lemon flesh only

100g water, optional

20g rosewater, or to taste

sparkling wine or soda water to serve

Instructions

Place sugar & zest into TM bowl & chop for 10 secs speed 10.

Add strawberries & lemon. Chop for 5 secs speed 7. Add the ice & rose water, chop for 1min 30 secs on speed 10 stiring with the spatula if needed. You may need to add the water to keep the sorbet mixture moving around..

Transfer to a Thermoserver & serve imediately or freeze into ice cube trays for later.

To make the cocktail/mocktail place a generous scoup of the sorbet (or a couple of the frozen ice cubes of sorbet into a cocktail or champagne glass top with sparling wine or soda water.

Or I have been told that vodka (to taste) with the soda water & sorbet is great too!!

Cheers!!

Notes

Place leftover sorbet into icy pole makers for a quick delicious snack for the kids.Or place leftovers into ice cube trays keep them for another day of cocktails/mocktails or chop them up again in the Thermomix before serving, you may need to add a bit of liquid to help keep them moving in the TM bowl. Suitable to make in the Thermomix Model 5 & TM31 too.

We had to choose 2 of our photos to exhibit as part of our unit – realise a creative project. So here are mine. I even learned how to mount the pictures for the exhibit.

Let them eat cake

I made the Devil of a Cookbook sponge cake recipe. I also made raspberry, rosewater & rhubarb jam to go with it. I took it into TAFE for a studio shoot. None of the other students or teacher minded helping me eat it after I had taken a lot of different shots!

Meat the maker: The first time I met “The girl & the guy” was at a Thermomix demo I did for them a few years ago (June 2012). I knew instantly we were going to get along well, especially when they unveiled their chicken liver pate’ in the shape of a mandarin – a Heston recipe they had made in their Thermomix!! And to seal the new friendship they even gave me one to take home!! Friends forever 🙂

OK so you may not want to make the meat fruit but you will definitely want to check out AGAGFAF Chocolate Chip Biscuits:-)